Just finished my first novel. A vampire thing called Thicker Than Water. Here's the first page:

Tyr pulled off the lid and shoved the naked body head first into the steel drum. She was five feet ten inches and 140 pounds, big for the incinerator. Normally his rule of thumb was that any girl over five foot eight was off limits since it usually meant having to cut them up in order to dispose of them, but this showgirl had been making eyes at him all night and he couldn't resist.

Her legs splayed out in a "V" at the top of the barrel. He tried to fold them downward so that he could light her up and mash the lid down on top of her. Her left leg folded in fine, but the right one was temperamental. He tried breaking the bones in her shin and thigh, but the limb still wanted to hang out the side of the drum. Shit. Maybe if he hadn't packed so much wood and paper into the sides of the barrel, if the bitch hadn't had such an obnoxiously huge goddamn purse…

He considered taking the purse inside and burning it in the woodstove, but he didn't like to break tradition. Next thing he knew he'd have ten charred tubes of lipstick in the fireplace. No, he'd gone to the trouble to build the incinerator; he might as well incinerate with the damn thing.

As he turned toward the toolshed to get the saw, he noticed the figure coming toward him.

Okay, so I see this is where people post their stories and such. I was going to start a Thread about my writing to get opinions but this good!

Here's the first Chapter of a story I am working on, it's a Horror Story (more Slasher than anything). Here is the first Chapter:

"

The Vast Journey to Nowhere

Chapter 1

With his Gas Mask on, door after door he would go through slicing people in half with his Katana, having no remorse for the people that he took down in his path of revenge. The next room he entered was ‘The Sanctuary’, when he entered he saw the countless people running in different directions trying to escape their destiny. More than 15 people were in the ‘The Sanctuary’, six people wearing dark red cloaks with the hoods up. So you couldn’t see their faces, little children on their knees in the corner of the room trying to hide. He readied his Katana in his hands, fixing his grip and allowing the Katana to sit comfortably. The Gas Mask he wore took away a bit of his vision but hid his face, wearing a bulletproof vest, with dark cargo pants and hiking boots. He walked toward the six men with dark red cloaks on, standing at the Altar with a naked dead child beside them on a table. The child had symbols on his body, written in blood. He didn’t know what the symbols meant, but knew they weren’t good. The group of six men split up, three running to the left while three ran to the right. While he held his Katana with two hands, his left hand let go and pulled out a 9mm handgun out and shot all three men on the left running away. They fell over each when going down, one of the cloaked men’s hood fell down and his mutated face was shown. He put his 9mm Handgun back in and turned to the right, ran at the other three cloaked men with his Katana in full swing, cutting all three men in half at the waist and watching the upper-half of their bodies do flips in the air as they smashed back against the ground. He turned around to see a huge mutated man standing behind him, bigger than three NFL QB’s put together. He stood still with his Katana in hand, getting ready to swing until the mutated giant’s hand grabbed his skull, and ripped it off of his shoulders then throwing the head against the wall were pictures of Satan were hung. The mutated giant went on to rip the body in half, until the screen turned dark and a message flashed upon the screen in white writing...

GAME OVER!
Try again?

Karen Wickens threw her Playstation 3 Controller against the walls in her Apartment in rage, and then followed with cursing.

“This stupid fucking game, I can never get by this level! How am I suppose to fucking kill this son of a monkey sucking dickhead! Ugh I think I am fucking explode from this retarded game”

She took her eyes off the screen looking out to the streets below her, no one walking around this early in the morning (6:15am). She lost focus, and continued looking outside until her Laptop beeped beside her; it was a message from a random person on Facebook. The name read, ‘Will Walsh’.

“hey do i knw u babe??”

Karan hated these types of uneducated people, but she went along with ‘William Walsh’ for the time being.

“Hi, I’m Karen. I’m 22 years old and I hate everyone, and anyone. I hate you, because you’re an uneducated fuck. I live in an Apartment down the street from my parents, and I have two younger brothers. One of them is nice, that’s George and he is 12 years old. My other brother is Joe, and he’s 19 years old and a total ass, in about two hours me and my family are going on a Cruise with two other families on my street. I don’t want to go, but I have to even though I am 22 fucking years old. My Mother’s name is Maria; she’s lovely and so generous. My father is Kevin, he’s a complete tool and he gets on my nerves from time to time but I still love him. I don’t have a boyfriend, and I don’t want you as my future boyfriend either. So what’s your life like Mr.Walsh?”

A message sprung on Karen’s laptop after sending her 156 word message back to Will.

“William Walsh has now disconnected”

Karen said some curses, and then decided to get up and get ready for her Cruise even if it meant dealing with her fear of Water.

***

“George get up! We will be late if you don’t move your ass son!”

George heard his name being shouted by his father Kevin for which could of been the tenth time it was repeated. But he jumped up out of his Spiderman Themed Bed, and let his father know that he was awake and ready to go (even though he wasn’t).

“Yeah Dad I am up! I am up now! I’m ready and everything!”

A few seconds were killed by George putting on the clothes that laid on his bed, his Mother left out for him. Then his Dad shouted back.

“Okay good man George! Just have your bag and everything you need with you, we have to leave in about 5 minutes to pick up Karen.”

***

Joe Wickens had been up now for the past hour, in his room working out while having a ‘Lil Wayne’ song playing in the background. He had been ready to go on this trip now for the past few weeks, with his girlfriend who was coming with her family too. His girlfriend was Jennifer Walker, and they had been together for the past three months. They were the type of couple that were only together for each other’s looks, Joe never saw deep into Jennifer (only felt that far with his penis). She was into Art, drawing pictures in her room and taking photographs any chance she could. Joe didn’t know that Jennifer wanted to be a professional Artist in ten years or so. The only thing he knew was how good she looked in certain dresses and underwear. He didn’t care about her feelings; he only cared about how she looked.
Jennifer liked Joe, a whole lot actually but she knew deep down that the reason she liked him was because of his “bad boy” image and the sexual experiences she had with him were fantastic. She was a shy, normal, cute looking girl but with Joe’s presence she would could change if she spent too long with her.

“Joe get ready will you hunny!? It’s nearl-“

Joe shouted back to his Mother which was downstairs, interrupting her.

“Mom I have been ready for the past 20 goddamn hours! I am fully ready and bored as hell. Let’s go already”

***

Maria and Kevin Wickens have been married for what seemed like 100 years, but was actually 23 years. They weren’t rich, or poor. They were the normal family, with the normal income. But both Maria and Kevin always wanted to go on an expensive Cruise and relax for a couple of days, not having to worry about anything. That time has come for them both, when they and two other families on their street agreed with splitting the trip for the money and all going together. There were the Clarks, and the Walkers. The Clarks had lost a son a couple of years back and never really got back the happiness they had, so maybe the Cruise could cheer them up a bit Maria and Kevin thought. Then there were the Walkers, they had twins, one of them was Jennifer who was dating Joe and the older twin Donna. They were a great family to be around and always had fun, so having them on the Cruise too only brightened up how great it was going to be.
Maria looked at the clock in the Kitchen while she supped on her Coffee; she swallowed it fast and called out to the Kevin –who was in the Sitting Room-, Joe –in his room- and George –who was in his room-.

“Guys let’s get going now! It’s half 7 and we have to meet the Clarks and Walkers down at the Docks at 8am. We have to pick up Karen on the way too, come on we’re leaving now!”

A couple of seconds later, they all gathered at the door with their bags ready to go on the trip of a lifetime."

Go easy on me, I'm not the best but hey I have been getting good feedback from others I showed it to!

Erebus Dirge
is dressing up his turds like barbie dolls with
thedead flayed skins of his enemies

Join Date: Jul 2011

Location: Scottish , living in Spain

Posts: 1,575

First of all, great stuff everyone. I'm a first-time writer looking to publish a book of short horror /crime stories hopefully this year. Tentatively called Pros and Psychos.
I've heard rumours that the best way to go about it is to self publish and sell it through Kindle-copies. Does anyone here know how I can go about doing this?

__________________
" The world is indeed comic, but the joke is on mankind. " - H.P. Lovecraft

I've been working on a series of Horror-Comedy short stories for a while, and I just returned to BD for the first time since all those changes took place with the site forever ago. Anyway, I was hoping to share a little of what I've been working on, its a short called "No Good Deed" from the collection "Danny 'O - Job Search". Anyway, this is a small bit I pulled from chapter 5

By the time I reached the pit, he was on the other side, holding a knife to the throat of one of the captives, a young blonde girl, maybe nineteen at the very most. “The great Yig requires a very specific sacrifice on this summer’s eve, Mr. O’Brian, two females and two males.” I stared at the blade in his hand, urging myself to think of a way to get out of this mess with everyone in more or less one piece. I was drawing blanks, I had no plan, no way out at all. I decided to fall back on the tried and true method of annoying the piss out of him. “Hate to break it to you Nate, but you have two females, and one male there, looks like this year’s anniversary present is coming up a bit short.” I said chuckling nervously and hoping I seemed nonchalant. “I would hope the father of serpents will forgive my oversight in light of what I’m about to do for him.” Nathan said, a maniacal grin spreading across his face. At this point I was pretty worried, I mean, I knew this guy was nuts enough to lock a grown man in a dog crate, but now he was brandishing a knife at some nubile blonde and giving me the crazy eyes. My whole night had jumped genre from You Got A Purdy Mouth all the way to Nineteen-Eighties Cult Slasher. I racked my brain, trying to think of something to say to defuse the situation but unfortunately only more sarcasm came out “Look Nate, how about you put down the knife, we’ll pour into Mom’s minivan, and I’ll drive you and your little friends to the mall. We can all get shamrock shakes and then we can pick Yiggy out a nice card and maybe a charm bracelet.”. Nathan lowered the knife from the girl’s throat and raised it to his own “Laugh while you can Mr. O’Brian, because soon my lord Yig will be feasting on your flesh”.
I didn’t like the sound of that, but at the time I was busy pondering how a Snake God would wear a charm bracelet, so I just stood there as he began chanting, I’m not exactly sure of the phonetics of what he was shouting, but it sounded like “Yig Ia! Ia Yig! Yisssss nessss kullasss Yig!” (While I’m not sure how accurate my transcription here is, its probably best not to read that out loud), he repeated those phrases two more times and I became aware that all of the goth kids had gathered at the bottom of the stairs and were watching this spectacle jaws agape.
When he finished the last recitation, he slid the knife across his own throat, gurgled wetly (a sound eerily reminiscent of the ones he was making while trying to talk with the fake fangs in) and fell forward into the inky blackness of the pit. The hissing stopped instantly and the room fell completely silent. I’ll admit, I was stunned and I stood dumbstruck for what felt like forever. I’m not new to violence by any stretch, and I’ve even seen a two people buy it before, but that was a car crash, this was different. This was the first time I’d ever watched someone slit their own throat. What I’m saying is, this wasn’t just fucked up, this was a whole new level of fucked up, this was brand new territory for me, and I think standing there in shock for a few moments is completely excusable.

__________________
"Did you ever notice how in the Bible, when ever God needed to punish someone, or make an example, or whenever God needed a killing, he sent an angel? Did you ever wonder what a creature like that must be like? A whole existence spent praising your God, but always with one wing dipped in blood. Would you ever really want to see an angel?" ~Thomas Daggett (The Prophecy 1995)

First of all, great stuff everyone. I'm a first-time writer looking to publish a book of short horror /crime stories hopefully this year. Tentatively called Pros and Psychos.
I've heard rumours that the best way to go about it is to self publish and sell it through Kindle-copies. Does anyone here know how I can go about doing this?

J. A. Konrath swears by Kindle self publishing. That's the direction I want to go too. There is some legwork involved, but if you push your book out for about 2 dollars a download, and you advertise competently, you can apparently succeed pretty well. The idea seems to be, if its cheap enough, and there is no production cost to cover, you can sell enough copies out of pure curiosity to make a decent profit.

__________________
"Did you ever notice how in the Bible, when ever God needed to punish someone, or make an example, or whenever God needed a killing, he sent an angel? Did you ever wonder what a creature like that must be like? A whole existence spent praising your God, but always with one wing dipped in blood. Would you ever really want to see an angel?" ~Thomas Daggett (The Prophecy 1995)

First of all, great stuff everyone. I'm a first-time writer looking to publish a book of short horror /crime stories hopefully this year. Tentatively called Pros and Psychos.
I've heard rumours that the best way to go about it is to self publish and sell it through Kindle-copies. Does anyone here know how I can go about doing this?

I'd say don't limit yourself to just Kindle - there are plenty of other ways to get self published, though the Kindle process is fairly painless.

You can also self-pub with Barnes & Noble, Apple, Kobo (UK and Europe sales), and Smashwords which is mainly indie publications, but will forward your books to other retailers too.

Draft2Digital is another site which also pushes your books to places like B&N, Apple and so on, and their interface for uploading books is much nicer than Smashwords.

Shoot me a PM if you want to know more, or I can keep blabbing in this thread!